About 95 percent of quality in a computer is subjective When a machine runs well, people aren’t likely to become concerned about the specification of its memory controllers or the speed of its hard disk. But when things are bad, it doesn’t matter if the machine is tricked out with the best components in the entire world — it’s a pile of junk.
This is all relevant to the current tempest in a teapot that goes by day as a lawsuit against Apple for “deceptively” using 6-bit LCD screens instead of 8-bit color on its MacBooks and MacBooks Pro. What this essentially means is that Apple advertises its computers as displaying millions of colors (presumably a full 16,777,216) but that they instead show only several hundred thousand (262,244). I am outraged! OUTRAGED!*
Why, just read this shocking quote from the lawsuit!
The reality is that notwithstanding Apple’s misrepresentations and
suggestions that its MacBook and MacBook Pro display “millions of
colors,” the displays are only capable of displaying the illusion
of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred
to as “dithering,” which causes nearby pixels on the display to use
slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into
perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color.
And just imagine, if you sell that same computer to a color-blind
person, they see far fewer than even the 262,244 colors you should be
seeing! Horrors! And dogs can only see the screens in black and white
— a double-insult!
As several very insightful people have pointed out, virtually no
laptop screens capable of displaying millions of colors are on the
market. The fact that it’s taken people this long to notice really is
more indicative of what a non-issue it is. The only people who need
such color range are graphics and video professionals, and we can only
pray they’re not relying on built-in laptop displays for their work!
(In case you’re wondering where the figures come from, 6-bit and
8-bit refer to each color channel. That means (2^6)^3 versus (2^8)^3.
That’s because we’re talking about the color-depth for red, green and
blue. We’re actually talking about 18-bit and 24-bit color. And none of
it has anything to do with 64-bit processing)
So, yes, Apple shouldn’t lie about it, but neither should other PC makers, and no one should be using laptops exclusively for mission-critical graphic design and color balancing. Can we go home now?
*I am not outraged.
Image and quote via Ars Technica.
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
2 responses to “MacBook Screen Lawsuit is a Tempest in a Teapot”
its just like how they say Mac’s dont come with trial software, where my mac came with loads of it…